AVStoDVD Support Thread

[MrC]

Originally Posted by IanB

And as pointed out it has the side effect of softening the border edge. Which is a 2 edge sword, if the borders align with the block size for the codec, i.e. 16, then a hard border edge is advantageous, the border block is a solid colour (very easy to encode), the next block across is regular picture. If not then you have an extreme transition within a block (hard to encode). Else when resized the block has a soft transition (easy to encode).

Hi IanB,

if I correctly understood, if the AddBorder value is a multiple of 16 then adding the statement at the end of the script is better, else it is convenient to leave resizing at the end?

Originally Posted by leoliver

Should I UN-install a previous version of AVStoDVD before installing a updated version ? Or would the new version simply replace the older version without needing to UN-install the older ?
Also, last month you sent me a "special version " of AVStoDVD....

"I have uploaded a very alpha release of AVStoDVD 2.1.3 (exe only) which contains a lot of new debug instructions.
Download it, unzip it, overwrite current exe and start again your simple project. Copy and past here the log file."

That was the version I needed to run AVStoDVD on my computer due to my system problems. So I would like to ask if the new update.......... ,
" AVStoDVD 2.1.3 Alpha build 090102 is out." , contains all of the fixes that were on the "very alpha release of AVStoDVD 2.1.3 " that you sent me last month ?
If so , I will give the new updated version a try.
Thanks.

It is always better to uninstall previous releases. It is a safe procedure because AVStoDVD will ask you if you want to keep your custom settings. Everything else will be cleaned.
And yes, 2.1.3 Alpha 090102 contains all the fixes.



Bye

[IanB]

Originally Posted by MrC

if I correctly understood, if the AddBorder value is a multiple of 16 then adding the statement at the end of the script is better, else it is convenient to leave resizing at the end?

As a coarse generalisation, yes. But you really need to fully understand the internals of the codec in question before making such a leap of faith. Codec designers put considerable work into optimally handling such cases. You should test encode a short segment to be sure of the behaviour.

[MrC]

Originally Posted by IanB

As a coarse generalisation, yes. But you really need to fully understand the internals of the codec in question before making such a leap of faith. Codec designers put considerable work into optimally handling such cases. You should test encode a short segment to be sure of the behaviour.

Thanks for the reply. I will surely make some tests. You know, as GUI designer I have to make as many generalisations as possible: script automation and "quick&dirt" rules are my common bread...



Bye

[leoliver]

Hi Everyone,

Today I used the new version of AVStoDVD to encode a great DVD movie. However at the start I opened up The Settings menu and clicked on " 2.HCenc OPV 1-pass " . And the clicked on "save settings as default " .
But it looked like the 'QuEnc CBR' was doing the video encoding .
After the job was finished , the log showed that the "
1.QuEnc CBR 1-pass " selection was used .
The previous time I used AVStoDVD , I selected the 3rd choice , " 3.HCenc VBR 2-pass " and custom set the maximum bit rate to 9000. And then AVStoDVD remembered my settings. But if I remember right , I think I clicked on the
" Pad Lock " icon before running that job. Is the " Pad Lock " icon needed to save settings for a job?
The QuEnc CBR 1-pass setting made a great movie , in fact I couldn't tell the difference in the video quality between the QuEnc CBR 1-pass setting and the twice as long (in encode time) HCenc VBR 2-pass setting.
I still would like to try the HCenc OPV 1-pass setting , so I'm wondering why that setting didn't go into play? Unless I'm not saving the settings the correct way ?
Thanks.

[MrC]

@leoliver

AVStoDVD automatically chooses Video Profile according to video bitrates levels.

To fix, in the current project, a Video Profile (i.e. HCenc OPV 1-pass) for all bitrates, you have simply to select it in 'Settings'/'Enconding'/'Setup Video Profiles' and then click on the small icon 'Lock selected Video Profile for all bitrates'. That's all.

Press F1 (Help) to get more details about how AVStoDVD works with Video Profiles.



Bye

[MrC]

AVStoDVD 2.1.3 is available to download.

Change log (in italic added items from 2.1.3 Alpha)

- Some bugs fixed
- Added 'KeepDAR' feature (keep thumbnails Display Aspect Ratio) in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'HL Links' feature (display HighLights links/dependencies) in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'Button Generator' section in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'Muxed MPEG2 File' as Output Setup option (muxing is done by ImagoMPEG-Muxer)
- Changed AC3 audio encoder: from QuEnc to Aften r762
- Changed MPEG2 video demuxer: from 'ReJig 0.5f' to 'FFmpeg r14277'
- Removed ImgBurn from 'NoInstall' package. It is still present in the 'Installer' package as installer itself.
- Improved errors logging in AVStoDVD project log file
- Improved AVS Script generation function
- AviSynth updated to 2.5.8
- MediaInfo updated to 0.7.8



Bye

[rendez2k]

Originally Posted by MrC

AVStoDVD 2.1.3 is available to download.

Change log (in italic added items from 2.1.3 Alpha)

- Some bugs fixed
- Added 'KeepDAR' feature (keep thumbnails Display Aspect Ratio) in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'HL Links' feature (display HighLights links/dependencies) in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'Button Generator' section in DVD Menu Editor
- Added 'Muxed MPEG2 File' as Output Setup option (muxing is done by ImagoMPEG-Muxer)
- Changed AC3 audio encoder: from QuEnc to Aften r762
- Changed MPEG2 video demuxer: from 'ReJig 0.5f' to 'FFmpeg r14277'
- Removed ImgBurn from 'NoInstall' package. It is still present in the 'Installer' package as installer itself.
- Improved errors logging in AVStoDVD project log file
- Improved AVS Script generation function
- AviSynth updated to 2.5.8
- MediaInfo updated to 0.7.8



Bye

Nice work! Button generator works well. Would it be possible to add a transparent button option? Or, even remove the button all together (never use the play all button!.

[MrC]

Originally Posted by rendez2k

Nice work! Button generator works well. Would it be possible to add a transparent button option? Or, even remove the button all together (never use the play all button!.

To both of your questions, the answer is yes. But be prepared to wait a little bit. My will is to re-design the DVD menu process generation, by building a sort of wizard. Step by step it will be possible to choose and customize menu configuration and elements, including:

- aspect ratio (4:3 - 16:9)
- multi page menu
- custom buttons or no buttons (text only menu)
- different highlight shapes
- template saving

please feel free to add request: in a planning step, everything is allowed.



Bye

[Richardw322]

A question on Avisynth 2.5.8, will that keep existing plugins in the Avisynth folder?

Also, love the "menu wizard" idea. Even with one movie per DVSD I prefer menu, so I drop in DVD and get to pick when playback of the movie starts.

[kinnth]

i just wanted to check, does avs2dvd decode blu rays or hd dvd's? Thanks

[leoliver]

Tonight , the AVStoDVD process was aborted due to a DVD authoring error . The error message said to look at the 2 log files I'm attaching with this post.
When I looked in my "Output" folder , I had a Glory_0_Title_01.ac3 (178 MB. ) file , a Glory_0_Title_01.m2v (4.03 GB.) file and a VIDEO_TS folder (4.31 GB.) . The files 5 .vob files , in the VIDEO_TS folder , were playable if I loaded them as individual files in Mplayer . And those files have good audio/video playback , but no DVD menu structure.
Please take a look at my log files and let me know what went wrong and how it can be corrected .
Thanks.

[MrC]

Originally Posted by Richardw322

A question on Avisynth 2.5.8, will that keep existing plugins in the Avisynth folder?

Yes, it should. Anyway, for your safety, backup them.

Originally Posted by kinnth

i just wanted to check, does avs2dvd decode blu rays or hd dvd's? Thanks

No, it does not. At least not directly. For that purpose give a try to BD Rebuilder.



Bye

[manolito]

@leoliver
From your BatchMux log file:

-- Starting scene Seg1_Scn12 at 01:50:00:01, requested for 01:50:00:00
-- Starting scene Seg1_Scn13 at 02:00:00:01, requested for 02:00:00:00
-- End of video file
-- Bytes remaining in buffer = 0.
-- Bitrate - avg: 4743230, min: 3011644 (lba 1949496), max: 6481582 (lba 623000).
-- Shortest GOP has 7 fields, longest GOP has 30 fields.
-- Fields: 468010, VOBU: 15184, Sectors: 2260436.
-- Reference to non-existant scene "Seg1_Scn14" from PGC "VTS01_Ttn1_Pgc1"

Originally Posted by manolito

In AVStoDVD the two typical problematic situations are:
1. Overshooting max bitrate causing buffer overflows
2. A chapter point out of the movie length range.

Originally Posted by MrC

As manolito said, there are probably some bitrate spikes rejected by MuxMan. About chapters, the routine to determine them is quite robust, so I am confident it should not create errors.

Looks like the chapter creation routine of AVStoDVD could use some bug fixing. I got this error too a couple of times, so it might be a good idea to create the last chapter only if it is at least one minute away from the end of the movie. IIRC Sir Didymus did it like this in his BatchMux plugin for DVD2SVCD...

Cheers
manolito

[MrC]

@manolito

you are (clearly ) right! In the chapters creation routine, there is a mismatch between time and frames when selected video standard is NTSC (30 fps vs 29.97 fps). I will try to solve this issue, and if I could not, I will use SD's workaround.

Thanks for your debug



Bye

[leoliver]

"Looks like the chapter creation routine of AVStoDVD could use some bug fixing. I got this error too a couple of times, so it might be a good idea to create the last chapter only if it is at least one minute away from the end of the movie. IIRC Sir Didymus did it like this in his BatchMux plugin for DVD2SVCD..."


Thanks for your reply. I set my chapter creation time mark to 10 mins. , instead of the default 10 mins. . I don't know if that aggravated the chapter creation routine problem.
As I said in my post , my AVStoDVD job did create a full folder of .vob files with good audio/video playback but no DVD menu structure. So I loaded the .vob files into Nero Vision 4 .
Nero merged all the .vob files into one single .vob file and was able to create chapters with a DVD menu that I burned to a blank DVD. But that added about 2 extra hrs. to the total time of that particular task.
So I'll look forward to this bug being fixed.

[MrC]

Originally Posted by leoliver

"Looks like the chapter creation routine of AVStoDVD could use some bug fixing. I got this error too a couple of times, so it might be a good idea to create the last chapter only if it is at least one minute away from the end of the movie. IIRC Sir Didymus did it like this in his BatchMux plugin for DVD2SVCD..."


Thanks for your reply. I set my chapter creation time mark to 10 mins. , instead of the default 10 mins. . I don't know if that aggravated the chapter creation routine problem.
As I said in my post , my AVStoDVD job did create a full folder of .vob files with good audio/video playback but no DVD menu structure. So I loaded the .vob files into Nero Vision 4 .
Nero merged all the .vob files into one single .vob file and was able to create chapters with a DVD menu that I burned to a blank DVD. But that added about 2 extra hrs. to the total time of that particular task.
So I'll look forward to this bug being fixed.

Right now, you can avoid that problem by settings 999 mins in chapters interval: it means no chapters at all.

Remember that the bug happens only when the total time is equal to (a multiple of chapters interval) plus (a bunch of seconds)



Bye

[Milardo]

Hi,
Is it possible to create custom chapter points? Also can I create motion menu buttons? How do I resize the resolution to like 352x240? If I can do these things avstodvd would be one of the top freeware dvd authoring programs.

[Sir Didymus]

Originally Posted by manolito

...
Looks like the chapter creation routine of AVStoDVD could use some bug fixing...
...
IIRC Sir Didymus did it like this in his BatchMux plugin for DVD2SVCD...

Hi manolito!

Excellent analysis! I completely agree with your findings. I have also to comment on the very strong and useful logging capabilities of AVStoDVD.

Well, just a minor detail: in the DVD2SVCD plugin, the actual threshold to prevent the chapter creation before the end of movie is set to 10 seconds...

Suggestion to MrC: batchmux actually supports both chapter files in the "Framecount" and in the "Non Drop Time Code" formats. The advantage of the later is that the represented times (strings of the form "hh.mm.ss.ff") are absolute and independent from the TV standard, presence of pulldown, etc... The format is much more general, and it is the same used internally to MuxMan. It's an option to consider...

In case of need, please let me aware about: I would be happy of sharing the section of code for the chapter generation used inside the DVD2SVCD plugin...

Cheers,
SD

[Sharc]

Shoudn't 'AssumeFPS(25)' be added to the script when converting an m2ts@23.976 fps to a compliant 720x576 PAL DVD? (=PAL speedup)
(The Audio would have to speed up as well, eac3to can do this for example).

[MrC]

Originally Posted by Milardo

Hi,
Is it possible to create custom chapter points? Also can I create motion menu buttons? How do I resize the resolution to like 352x240? If I can do these things avstodvd would be one of the top freeware dvd authoring programs.

See my answer here

Originally Posted by Sir Didymus

I have also to comment on the very strong and useful logging capabilities of AVStoDVD.

Thank you very much, but these are peanuts...

Originally Posted by Sir Didymus

Suggestion to MrC: batchmux actually supports both chapter files in the "Framecount" and in the "Non Drop Time Code" formats. The advantage of the later is that the represented times (strings of the form "hh.mm.ss.ff") are absolute and independent from the TV standard, presence of pulldown, etc... The format is much more general, and it is the same used internally to MuxMan. It's an option to consider...

Some releases ago I was using "celltc timecode" format, but I had to move to "cellfr framecnt" because of several authoring aborts by Muxman.

Originally Posted by Sir Didymus

In case of need, please let me aware about: I would be happy of sharing the section of code for the chapter generation used inside the DVD2SVCD plugin...

Let me do some trials. If I will be not successful, I will surely ask for your help (as I did so many many times...)

Originally Posted by Sharc

Shoudn't 'AssumeFPS(25)' be added to the script when converting an m2ts@23.976 fps to a compliant 720x576 PAL DVD? (=PAL speedup)
(The Audio would have to speed up as well, eac3to can do this for example).

FPS upsizing is made by applying pulldown flags (DGPulldown is used), after raw video encoding is done. Audio does not have frames.



Bye